all is perfect

To a buddha

Everything is perfect

Exactly as it is

This is one of the great paradoxes in giving spiritual teachings. Our buddha nature feels everything, everything that is, to be perfect. Nothing needs to be changed. And yet spiritual teachings are encouraging us to transform ourselves, to realize the buddha within. And yet all of this is contained within the perfection of what is. What is here right now in this moment is perfect, and that includes the urge of seeking, the urge to realise our perfection. And when we say realise, it is not so much making something real. It rather means rediscovering the reality that is within us. We have lost touch with that, and yet to our buddha nature the loss of touch is also perfect, and this is where our small human mind and our buddha nature see things differently.

The small thinking mind is always categorising things as good or bad, right or wrong. This is the nature of dualistic thinking. To the mind, the thinking mind, there can only be perfection if there is also imperfection. There can only be right if there is also wrong. And so the thinking mind will always be seeing both dualities in the world around. And as the mind perceives the external world, it also perceives itself. So it is in a constant state of struggle within, between what is right and what is wrong, what is perfect and what is imperfect. To our buddha nature, to our being, all is perfect. There is no duality. Even to use the word perfect is misleading. It implies that there could be imperfection. And that is simply not possible.

Of course, sitting here, listening to the crickets, watching the flowers, even the thinking mind can feel perfection, the perfection of nature. And yet we are much more reluctant to look at the messy side of life as being perfect. Human beings create a lot of ugliness. We feel hatred and anger. We are antagonistic to one another. We are jealous and envious. Each of us has a shadow side, a dark side, sometimes repressed, and in some it's given an expression which is very destructive. Even as I speak, there are people in the world killing other human beings. They don't even know why they're doing it. They think it's in the name of some religion, or out of patriotism. It's simply insanity. And yet all this ugliness, all this ugliness is also felt as perfect to our buddha nature. And this is why it's so difficult for us to live as buddhas. We don't want everything to be perfect. A part of us wants there to be a big struggle between right and wrong. That allows us, too, to be angry and righteous, and maybe go to war in the name of what is right, to kill those people who are killing people. There is all sorts of madness, and a part of us likes this madness. It keeps us busy and occupied. It makes us feel we are superior.

It's all nonsense, of course. And yet this ignorant nonsense is also perfect from the perspective of our buddha, and remember this, you too are a buddha. You may not feel it yet. It may not be your conscious experience yet. Nevertheless, that is who you are. You are pure being, undifferentiated from the rest of existence. In your essence you are the whole of existence. It sounds grandiose, yet it is exactly the opposite. When we truly realise that there is nothing between us and the rest of existence, a sense of I simply disappears. There is nothing to be grandiose, no one, no little me. And yet life goes on, and a human being continues to walk about on the planet, being referred to with a name and a story; feeling emotions, positive and negative; having thoughts popping into the mind. One of the most difficult teachings to understand is that with enlightenment, nothing changes. And yet our ego so much wants everything to be different, better, more pure, more perfect. No. It's so simple. All is perfect, exactly as it is – including the misunderstandings, including the ignorance, including the yearnings and longings and desires, including all those things that keep us from feeling our buddha nature. It's all perfect. There's nothing to worry about. No need to get stressed.

You are perfect exactly as you are. And even without realising it, you are a buddha, exactly as you are.